KA-BAR & ESEE D’Eskabar

This weekend our special is something pretty cool – a neck-knife collaboration between KA-BAR and ESEE. Ethan Becker of KA-BAR and Jeff Randall of ESEE decided to combine the best of two of their most popular designs, resulting in the USA-made Eskabar, manufactured by KA-BAR. The Eskabar, or D’Eskabar in the case of this version, puts the KA-BAR Becker Necker blade on the ESEE IZULA handle, making for a unique fixed blade design that is more than the sum of its parts.

One interesting thing to note is that this is a sterile version so there aren’t any company or model markings anywhere on the knife, just a clean stonewash finish. The handle is skeletonized in IZULA tradition, but you can always purchase zytel handle scales for it, or just paracord wrap it. If you’re not sure how to wrap a handle you can click the annotation here to check out our quick tutorial for paracord wrapping the IZULA.

Even in its skeletonized form, the handle is perfectly comfortable, thanks to its nearly 4″ length and ergonomic shape. The pronounced indent for the index finger gives you a nice guard for really safe handling. As I mentioned earlier, the blade is the Becker Necker blade, which gives you some extra length over both versions of the straight IZULA. It’s a drop point blade with a flat grind and a fair bit of belly, enabling some nice slicing action. The whole knife is manufactured from D2 tool steel, an upgrade from the 1095 steel of both the IZULA and the Becker Necker. The D2 is where the D in D’Eskabar comes from.

The sheath included here is one of the most solid I’ve seen. It’s a friction release that the knife slots into extremely tightly, and then a latch flips over for that extra layer of security. The sheath has a bunch of lanyard holes and the package includes a length of cord so you can carry this one as a neck knife.

All in all, this collaboration between KA-BAR and ESEE has turned out a perfect candidate for an affordable fixed blade EDC, and the sterile stonewash finish and enhanced steel make this one a must have. To learn more about this product, click here. To see our entire inventory, visit knifecenter.com